Our story

Kia Ora

Nestled in the heart of Blenheim, Fidelio Café & Wine Bar is a welcoming space where great coffee, exceptional wine, and genuine hospitality come together.

By day, enjoy expertly crafted coffee, fresh cabinet food, and relaxed café dining. As the day unfolds, Fidelio transforms into a destination for wine lovers, showcasing a thoughtfully curated selection of Marlborough and New Zealand wines alongside international favourites.

Led by Sommelier Neil Kapadia, Fidelio is passionate about helping guests discover new wines through curated wine flights, boutique producer showcases, guided tastings, and memorable food and wine experiences.

Most of this region
has no front door.

Drive out to Renwick and you'll find beautiful cellar doors belonging to the labels big enough to build one. What you won't find is the other several hundred: growers with twelve hectares and a contract winemaker, couples making four hundred cases in borrowed tank space, a Master of Wine renting a corner of somebody else's shed.

Those wines are frequently the most interesting in the valley and they are close to impossible to taste. They go to a distributor, or a restaurant list in Auckland, or straight into a shipping container bound for somewhere else. The people who grew them never meet anyone who drinks them.

So that's the job. We are the cellar door for the wineries that don't have one, in town, open late, with everything on the shelf open somewhere in the room.

The railway
station.

Blenheim's station opened in 1912 and spent a century watching the region's fruit leave on a train. The booking hall has high windows, a hard floor and the acoustics of a room built for announcements, which is to say, it is loud when it's full, and we have made no serious attempt to fix that.

The Coastal Pacific still stops on the platform outside. People walk off the train, see the light on, and come in with their bags. It remains our favourite thing about the building.

Meet Neil Kapadia

I was born in Surat, Gujarat, India—a dry state where alcohol is restricted—which makes my journey into wine feel even more unexpected.

From going through the world of Hospitality, wine felt always curious to me.

Eventually, I moved to New Zealand and studied Viticulture and Oenology at Lincoln University, beginning a path that would lead me deep into the world of wine.

I went on to work across Central Otago, Waiheke Island, and Marlborough, including roles with leading wineries, cellar doors, WineWorks, and as a Sommelier at The Marlborough and Harvest Restaurant.

Recently recognised among New Zealand’s Top 100 Sommeliers, I fulfilled my dream of opening Fidelio Café & Wine Bar in Blenheim—a space built around great coffee, boutique wines, and genuine hospitality.